Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Installing Microsoft Windows XP from usb device (usb-stick, usb-hdd, SD card) simpler method


You will need a special tool to copy the Installationfiles and making the USB-stick/SD card bootable - usb_multiboot_10.zip (http://www.easy-share.com/1907307780/usb_multiboot_10.zip)
Unpack to any folder. THE PATH TO YOUR FOLDER MUST BE SIMPLE AND WITHOUT SPACES! (ex. c:\usb_multiboot_10)
Insert USBstick / SD card.
ALL DATA ON YOUR STICK WILL BE ERASED! Please back up before running USB_MultiBoot_10.cmd!
Run USB_MultiBoot_10.cmd. follow text description.
Format utility will apear. Choose NTFS for >=4Gb usb flash and FAT16 for other, Start format, Close after finishing to allow the DOS operations to continue.
diamondsw: Using the “HP format” option works fine for any capacity, and you can use FAT32 without problems (I used a 4GB stick). This can be useful as more systems can read FAT32 than NTFS.
NOTE: If you are doing this from a Vista machine, you may need to run PeToUSB.exe as adminstrator in order for this program to recognize the jump drive. (Right click PeToUSB.exe > Properties > Compatibility > “Run this program as an administrator” checked.)
Set options 1 and 2. Set option 0 only if you want to use USB HDD instead of a USB stick/ SD card.
Do not touch other options if you have no idea about it.
Choose 3 after setting all other options. It will create the image and write it to the USB stick as well as making the USBstick / SD card bootable.
Answer Yes to all questions that come up (these vary depending on options selected).
When it finishes copying, remove your usb stick and insert it in the EeePC to install XP.
When you turn on the Eee, hold down “Esc” to choose the boot device and select the USB stick/ SD card. You'll need to do this at each reboot until XP is fully installed and you've logged in.
Choose Text installation at first time and GUI INSTALLATION AFTER REBOOT TWICE! - ( Choose step 1 to start installing, after reboot choose step two, after continued install press step
2 AGAIN to log into XP - As soon as you arrive at the Windows XP Desktop you can safely remove the USBStick / SD card.
If you get hal.dll not found errors, read carefully the last two last bullets!
If you get 'ntldr is missing' or other boot errors after you have ran text installation make sure you have deleted ALL partitions during 'text installation' this includes the BIOS partition.
IMPORTANT! DO NOT REMOVE USB STICK UNTIL YOU'LL SEE XP's LOGIN SCREEN!

Method 2 nLited XP install

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR EEEPC 901 MODEL USERS!When you nLite your XP installation MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT REMOVE "Multi Processor Support" in the "Hardware Support" tree AND "Manual install and upgrade" in the "Operating system options" treeREMOVING any of these WILL make you UNABLE to install XPProblems you might get from removing these will be Installation Bluescreens and 'configuration errors'
Make iso image in nLite. (download link http://www.easy-share.com/1905181901/nLite-1.4.rc2.installer.exe / http://www.easy-share.com/1905181903/dotNetFx35setup.exe / http://www.easy-share.com/1905181905/nLite-1.4.5.b2.installer.exe )
Install Daemon Tools Lite virtual CD software (free/adware) you will need to reboot, or use any other virtualizing CD/DVD software: Alcohol, Nero etc.
Mount your nLite image into system. (Right click on red icon near system clock, choose Mount, find your nLited CD image)
Make 1-5 steps from Method 1 then:
On menu 1: (Choose your XP distributive source) choose your virtual drive with nLite image. Your drive letter can be different)
It will automatically detect nLited version and will make all settings automatically.
Press 3: Make multiboot USB-Drive …
Answer Yes to all questions, start copying.
When it finishes copying, remove your usb stick and insert it in the EeePC to install your nLited XP.
When you turn on the Eee, hold down “Esc” to choose the boot device and select the USB stick/ SD card. You'll need to do this at each reboot until XP is fully installed and you've logged in.
Choose Text installation at first time and GUI INSTALLATION AFTER REBOOT TWICE! - ( Choose step 1 to start installing, after reboot choose step two, after continued install press step 2 AGAIN to log into XP - As soon as you arrive at the Windows XP Desktop you can safely remove the USBStick / SD card.
If you get hal.dll not found errors, read carefully the last two last bullets!
IMPORTANT! DO NOT REMOVE USB STICK UNTIL YOU'LL SEE XP's LOGIN SCREEN!
mlehtola: Just installed XP sp3 into 901 (20G Linux) without Daemon Tools, just showed the nLited folder for the “usb_multiboot_10”, so I guess the Daemon Tools are not required…usb stick was Kingston DataTraveler 1 GB
Using the 8/16GB SSD on the Eee 900
If you're installing on an Eee 900 and want to use the larger 8 or 16GB SSD, you'll want to disable the onboard 4GB SSD in the BIOS prior to installing Windows. Otherwise Windows will insist on writing its bootsector and files to the 4GB drive, possibly corrupting what is already there. Most guides on the subject assume you're using a desktop that you can swap master and slave drives on, or remove drives you don't want to affect - not so with the soldered 4GB SSD.
To disable the onboard SSD:
Hold F2 and turn on the Eee.
When the BIOS configuration screen appears, press right to switch to the “Advanced” tab.
Select “IDE Configuration”, and set the IDE Master to “None” instead of onboard SSD.
The 4GB SSD will still appear in the Windows Setup program (text portion), but you can safely ignore it - Windows will not attempt to place its bootsector there, and instead will keep everything self-contained on the 16GB SSD.
Note that when you install onto the 8 or 16GB SSD, you will need to select option “3” for GUI installation, which tells it to continue on the second drive rather than the first.

Known Problems
If you get the hal.dll not found error message, start again from your USB-Drive and choose option 2 “Gui-Installation” which should work now. (If option 2 doesn't work choose option 4 and “Windows XP from HD” on the next screen.) Follow the installation process until you reach a usable windows desktop. The error message is misleading, it's nothing wrong with your hal.dll - your boot.ini has a corrupted entry which is easy to fix:
Search for boot.ini (normally it's located on C:\)
Open the boot.ini
Delete the line that referres to “Windows-USB-Boot” - it should be the last line
Save & Exit
Your Eee should now boot Windows normally without the pen drive.
* Note for anyone with an error relating to “dsfo.exe not found” - copy the file USB_MultiBoot_9/makebt/dsfo.exe to USB_MultiBoot_9/dsfo.exe
Verified on an Asus Eee 701 4G and Asus Eee 900 20G

Faster installs using an SD card

The above method using a USB flash drive will do it's job. However it is a very slow procedure. The reason is that Windows XP setup doesn't load USB2 drivers. Instead, it uses the motherboard's legacy USB1 driver. However, we can get USB2 speed by performing all of the above operation on a fast SD card. The SD card reader on the eeePC is USB2 (you can prove it by booting into the BIOS with a card in the slot and checking the list of drives).
1. Perform all of the above procedure, except pointing the target to an SD card in a USB card reader. You will end up with a bootable SD card. It's preferable to use a fast reading SD card, but you will get good speed even with a normal speed card.
2. Put the SD card in the card reader of the eeePC. Boot into the BIOS (F2), change the boot order so that the card is booted from. That's it. It's as fast as using an internal DVD drive.
THIS POST IS NOT WRITTEN BE MY, BUT I THING IS A GOOD IDEEA TO BE POSTED HERE TOO.

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